Second Chance
by Rayn12
Summary: Rukia struggles with the resemblance between Ichigo and her former vice-captain. An introspective little oneshot. I don't own Bleach.


_"Captain! Please, let me go! Kaien-dono… if we don't help Kaien-dono…"_

_"If we help him, what will happen to his pride?"_

"Hey, Rukia, are you ok?"

The diminutive shinigami shook herself and turned to snap at her roommate.

"What kind of stupid question is that? I'm not the one who's going to be late on top of missing two full days of school. Plus you're all beat up; you look like a hoodlum." She'd been able to cure him a little more in the day or so since the fight, but her powers were still impossibly weak. Reminders of Ichigo's battle with King Fisher lingered on his obdurate visage, reproaching her.

Ichigo ignored the friendly insult; he didn't seem to have heard anything past the start of her second sentence. "Late? What time is it?" He glanced at his alarm clock. "Ahh! Mizuiro will be here any minute!"

Rukia swung herself up onto the window sill. "I'm going on ahead. See you there." She hopped out and made her way quickly around the corner, before Kojima-kun could arrive. Ichigo would sulk if anyone saw her leaving through his window. He was impossible when he sulked.

The walk to school was a welcome chance to compose herself. She didn't want any more questions. She certainly didn't want to be forced to confess to Ichigo that a mere dream could have so much power over her. He was a temporary substitute; she and all the complications of shinigami existence would be out of his life soon. There was no point burdening him with old stories. Besides, her nightmares were her own. She was used to them, and she would bear them with her own strength.

She'd never known before today that good dreams could be worse than nightmares.

She banished that train of thought entirely as she approached the school, filling her mind instead with the students' typical chatter and all the schoolyard gossip. She was deep in conversation with Orihime (debating the merits of chocolate and pickled fruit as onigiri filling) when Ichigo slid into his seat, seconds before the bell rang. She was content and calm again as class started. She kept the memory at bay during science and even fended it off all the way through math. Try as she would, however, it would not leave her alone.

The dream had started out the way it always did. She and Ukitake-taicho had followed Kaien-dono to the lair of the Hollow who would take his life. Dread had stalked her through the darkness, an inexplicable companion until Kaien-dono forbade her to fight beside him. Then her grieving friend laid a single enraged hand on his enemy and Nejibana splintered and disappeared. Usually things just went downhill from there.

Last night had been different, worse. Worse because Rukia realized, after watching a few desperate minutes of her beloved vice-captain's bare-handed fight, that she had a sword on her back. A zanpakuto bigger than she was. She couldn't interfere, but surely his pride would allow him a sword?

She had gripped it in both hands, ignoring the pain in her ravaged shoulder and the blood that dripped down her arm to trickle through the guard and limn the blade. She had called his name and thrown the zanpakuto, flushing in triumph as her superior's hand clenched around the hilt. _Don't die,_ she had whispered fiercely as the soul cutter's blade flashed in the moonlight. _Don't die._

And he hadn't.

When it was over he had collapsed against her, bleeding and exhausted, the same stupid, grateful smile on his face... the one that had actually been there that night. A squad from Division 4 had swept around them, patching and bandaging, and she had hoisted his proud, stubborn ass onto her own back and delivered him, injured but firmly alive, into the grateful arms of his family. For a few beautiful seconds his blood did not stain her hands.

And then the dream ended. She opened her eyes on the black interior of Ichigo's closet and the darker realization that one cannot wake up from reality.

Rukia blinked against the pricking wetness in her eyes and put on a defensive smile. It was stupid to fall apart like this over a dream. Sheer idiocy. That knowledge didn't ease the constriction in her throat or the desperate ache in her breast. Her desire for the world in her dream was so strong it was hard to breathe. She wrapped her trembling fingers around her pencil and began taking furious notes, despite the fact that the geography of the human world was something she had actually learned in the academy. A Kuchiki did not cry in class. A Kuchiki did not cry.

The thought of her adoptive family steadied her somewhat. She had spent the last 40 years emulating the dispassionate reserve for which her brother Byakuya was renowned. She called it forth now and it swept around her easily, borne on the strength of habit, and cut her off from her irrational longing. Usually the mask of restraint felt awkward and false, like she was closing herself away from reality. This time it was an unmitigated relief. Numbness was better than despair.

That frigid calm got her through the rest of the morning. She painted a smile over her blank face and preformed 'bubbly high school student' like a virtuoso, a master with a puppet made of ice. Ichigo was the only one who doubted her; he kept looking at her strangely, and all she could do in response was resolutely ignore him. But that was not out of the ordinary, and he had his own concerns. He let it go. Her secret, her pain, was safe. By the time lunch ended and class reconvened she even believed it was under control.

Which was why she was so annoyed to find herself staring at Ichigo during Japanese lecture, tracing Kaien's likeness in his features.

_That likeness. That's half my problem in itself._ She woke every morning to her dead vice-captain's face. And not just his face, either; Ichigo had all her former superior's fiery benevolence, his unyielding honor, his native power and genius. It was rough and untaught, but undeniable, and it alternately warmed and haunted her. Watching Ichigo battle Grand Fisher had been like stepping back in time. No wonder her poor mind was having difficulty separating the two men in her dreams. Her loss was always before her eyes. Even Byakuya might have trouble retaining his composure in such a situation.

_Who am I kidding? Byakuya is the embodiment of composure. He wouldn't even blink. I should be like that. After all, Kaien-dono is dead. I held his body. I felt his essence leak away, across my sword, over my clothes, out into the darkness. There are no shinigami to ease the transition the other way. No memories outlive the second death. Everything that was Kaien-dono was thrust from Soul Society, scoured blank, exiled… to the human world… to be reborn…_

She looked again at Ichigo.

Was it possible?

There were billions upon billions of souls cycling between the two worlds. The odds of her meeting, by accident, a soul in one world she had known in the other were astronomical. Supporting such a theory with evidence as flimsy as a physical resemblance was laughable. And yet…

The two were so alike: in face, in character, in heart. The bond between them had grown so quickly. Rukia, who had learned so early the hazards of trust, had been able to summon faith in a stranger from the beginning...

"_Where do our hearts go? They are left with our companions…"_

Rukia knew only the passage into Soul Society. The opposite half of the journey was too mysterious to say for certain. Perhaps a scientist could tell her; the 12th division might look into such things. She wouldn't ask-- it didn't matter. The potential was there. And whether Ichigo was literally the reincarnation of her mentor or not, he was certainly the same kind of man. She would fight beside him, protect him just as readily. His memories might be forever lost, but the qualities at the core, whatever unique bits that made the vice-captain who he was… surely they survived. Somewhere, perhaps right in front of her, Kaien was alive and well.

_I failed you once, Kaien-sama. I swear it won't happen again._


End file.
